Belgrade iS HOT HOT HOT! The temperature is 29 degrees celcius, but with Eurovision picking up speed the place is..well..HOT!

Maiken and I arrived here yesterday afternoon, finally. The first Serbians we meet were Bosko and his wife Spomenka, who are our landlords. They were just great, and from the little that we saw of the city, Belgrade seems to be a happening place, or is it just Eurovision?

We had been invited to the Turkey delegation party so we arrived there at 19:20 (Maiken is very specific about time, apparently..). The party actually started at 18:00 and the hosts had ordered food for 600 people and drinks for 1,200 people, but maybe there were a lot of hungry thirsty fans because by 19:20 it was practically GONE! But the party was held at Club Otard which is a riverboat on the Danube, so at least we had the view to savour..

There was a stage outside the boat with a lot of noise and comings-and-goings, but our starvation was forgotten when we noticed that that loud noise was actually Tereza Kerndlova singing her Czech entry song! But wait, there’s more: following here were Turkey’s Mor ve ötesi and Hungary’s Csézy and, and..oh, Maiken will fill in the details replete with photos.

In between there were screams of joy when long-lost Eurovision fan-friends (well, at least since Helsinki ESC..) found each other at the Turkey Party. So much hugging and smacking cheek-kisses and promises to see each other at the Euroclub, but that’s another story because we first have to get our accreditation passes at the Press Centre.